I know a lot of us on this forum are concerned about developing ALS. I myself, having been cleared by two different neurologist, still suffer from ALS related anxiety. However recently I was reading about medications that are currently in clinical trials for treatment of this disease, and stumbled upon a biopharmaceutical by the name of Genervon. They have a drug (GM604) which just completed phase 2a clinical trials with very encouraging results. The clinical data indicated that 7 out of 8 patients had their progression slowed or stopped at week 12 of the trial. There is a lot of positive news on their webite about this medication, which they are calling a Multi-Target Regulatory Peptide. GM604 controls over 4,000 genes, and modifies ALS disease progression by modulating 8 or more pathways involving up to 22 biologic functions concurrently and dynamically. The results of this trial are statistically significant. This may not be the case for everyone here, but after reading this information some of my anxiety actually improved. So in turn I thought I would share this information and encourage anyone seeking further information to google "genervon GM604" and follow the links to their website. I know all of us here suffer from BFS, as opposed to ALS, but ALS seems to be our common fear. So anything that could possibly ease our health anxiety is worth a shot. Stay safe my friends! Any comments???

I think it's encouraging. The sooner the better it's about time. I read that the second phase was for Parkinson's tho. Either way it's encouraging, but they need to test way more people before they can say it's actually helpful. I really wish something would happen but I think it's still a while away. Such a shame after all these years. If they could just slow it down significantly then at least there's some hope.

I have also checked that yesterday. It looks promising. In addition i found a few more promising treatments.One is the drug Digoxin which is an existing heart drug and the other is the stem cell treatments.After 12 months since the beginning of my existing symptoms (twitching), after so many more different symptoms that i "probably" imagined i had, after getting cleared by so many honorable neurologists i do agree with you. In the long run i think finding a medication that could treat this horrible illness will be a God's gift to everyone who is currently suffering but it will also ease our fears and let us move on...

LKP1231 wrote:I think it's encouraging. The sooner the better it's about time. I read that the second phase was for Parkinson's tho. Either way it's encouraging, but they need to test way more people before they can say it's actually helpful. I really wish something would happen but I think it's still a while away. Such a shame after all these years. If they could just slow it down significantly then at least there's some hope.

Regarding Genervons GM604, the trials for ALS and PD are running concurrently. They are going to follow the same protocol for phase 2b. For the PD trial they using "GM608".

I looked in to the heart medication, "digoxin". Current test seem to indicate that this medicine blocks certain enzymes, and therefore motor nerve cells survive against degeneration. This is also good news. Though it will go through clinical trials to prove efficacy in humans, I assume Doctors could prescribe this medication to patients "off label" for someone diagnosed with ALS.

Genervon Biopharmaceuticals LLC today announced that it has submitted results to the FDA of its single compassionate patient trial (GALS-C) following its Phase 2A (GALS001) double blinded, randomized, placebo controlled ALS clinical trial protocol NCT01854294 for its drug candidate GM6. The FDA approved this compassionate-use application for this patient (IND # 120052).

“Because of the tenacity in fighting ALS demonstrated by this patient over the past 10 years and his otherwise-robust health, we felt him to be a perfect candidate.”

"Based on the encouraging results coming in from our GALS Phase 2A trial we were interested in testing GM6 in a late-stage patient," said Dorothy Ko, COO of Genervon. "Because of the tenacity in fighting ALS demonstrated by this patient over the past 10 years and his otherwise-robust health, we felt him to be a perfect candidate." He is a 46 year old male ALS patient who was first diagnosed with the disease in Q1 2005 and by Q3 2008 was quadriplegic and on a ventilator. He has said: “Every waking moment is a fierce battle between iron determination and utter despair.”

CLINICAL OBSERVATIONS:After a six-dose treatment of GM6 the clinical observation results of the GALS-C patient revealed small but significant improvements from baseline to week 12. At week 2 the patient’s speech video definitely showed clearer articulation than baseline. 2 Weeks after the final dose, patient’s swallow volume was increased 150%-200% to 25cc-30cc. The oral fluid consumption reported by the patient was improved, measuring 250cc total in 25cc increments without leakage. Mouth suction as measured by water column height was increased from 5-8cm to 10-15cm with both 1/8 and 1/4 inch drinking straws. Speech, swallowing, and suction were used as primary metrics based on the theory that the motor neurons servicing the tongue and lips, being some of the shortest, would show any improvement first. During the trial, no adverse side effects were noted.